ABERGOWRIE AND THE SOLDIER SETTLEMENT SCHEME

With ANZAC Day nearly here and my work on identifying the origins of Hinchinbrook Shire road and street names of the district I have been thinking about a historical photograph which is a favourite of mine. It was published in the book South Pacific Enterprise, The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. The photographer was the inimitable Max Dupain and the photograph is of soldier settlers in Abergowrie. He has captured them looking into the distance as if contemplating a happier, more prosperous and peaceful future than the horror of the past they had just endured. One of the soldiers is William (Bill) Richmond Rae.

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

As far as I can make our at least 14 roads in the district, particularly the Abergowrie area, are named for returned solders-or soldier settlers as they were known in the 1950s. In all, however, 42 returned soldiers were allocated land in the Herbert River district. 

From road names I have identified these soldier settlers and I am open to correction: Henry and George Copley; David Craig; Reay Craven; Roy Dowling; Thomas Finlayson; Donald and Murray Groundwater; Charles Irlam; Arthur Lee; Stanley McCarthy; William Rae; Herman Strid; Douglas Venables; Herbert Wallis; Joseph Wilkinson. Noel Trost was another, though no road is named after him. But that is only 17 names of the 42. 

 How and why did soldier settlement come about in the Herbert River district? Compared to the south of the continent, the north was and continues to be sparsely settled. The close proximity of the battle front to Australia in World War 2 only heightened “the virtual obsession of land settlement authorities” (Tanzer). A solution was closer settlement with agricultural development. So, a Royal Commission on Soldier Settlement on Sugar Lands in 1946 looked into settlement of returned soldiers on farms north of Proserpine, but especially in the far northern sugar growing districts. The Herbert River district was viewed as particularly vulnerable and could be bolstered by new settlement of both returned solder and others. 

Meanwhile the demand for increased milling capacity to handle the Herbert River district’s crop was once more on the agenda. West of Ingham township had long been identified as a possible location with farmers petitioning the government in 1916 for a central sugar mill at Long Pocket. However now post World War 2 CSR and local farmers came up with the ‘Abergowrie Scheme’ which would achieve the duplication of Victoria Mill and the extension of cane growing into the Abergowrie district. 58 square kilometres of countryside along the Herbert River were identified as suitable for sugar cane cultivation.

The Abergowrie Scheme was ambitious, and it was planned that 200 new farms would be established by the end of 1954. The 'War Service (Sugar Industry) Settlement Act of 1946' was consequently passed and ballots were conducted of returned soldier applicants. Those selected for the Herbert River district were allotted 24.3 hectares (60 acres). By 1954 120 farms had been taken up by prospective growers, 78 of which had received assignments under the Sugar Industry Act, while 42 were ex-servicemen or soldier settlers who had secured their blocks by ballot. The first to take up their assignments were the soldier settlers during 1952 and 1953. 

 As John Tanzer, who had interviewed settlers from the period who were still on their farms in 1978 wrote: “During this early period of settlement the area was very isolated and living conditions were harsh. Ingham is some 50 kms. away and then was only accessible by a single dirt road. During the wet season this road was impossible for weeks at a time. There were no telephones except for one at a local agricultural college. Thus isolation was a major problem facing the new settlers and their families. In addition to the loneliness and isolation, living conditions were poor. There was no electricity in the area until 1957. Before this the new settlers had to rely on wood or coke stoves and kerosene or petrol lights. The only water available came from sinking bores. To begin with, many settlers lived in tents while their land was being cleared. Then they moved into farm sheds which were built first to store machinery. Half the shed would be used as living space and the other half set aside for the invaluable.” Moreover, “Despite the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board being assured by a spokesman for the proposal that, ‘the bulk of the land is lightly timbered, some of its river flats naturally clear and there is some scrub’ (Australian Sugar Journal, 1950), most of the land was covered by dense rainforest. This made the clearing of the land both time consuming and expensive” [requiring bulldozers]. “This high initial outlay naturally involved new settlers in substantial loan operations.” 

As soon as they were able both soldier settlers and others started abandoning their blocks. Up until 1958 they were prohibited (except in severe extenuating circumstances) by the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board from selling up. 45% of the solder settlers had sold up after 13 years and by 1978 when Tanzer conducted his research 27 solder settlers had left. While comparatively more soldier settlers exited than others in the five-year period between 1958 to 1962, once the five year sale prohibition had been lifted a half of all the new settlers who were to leave their farms did so. (Tanzer). Bill Rae was not one of those. Arthur Lee died tragically in 1953, but several others like Bill Rae weathered the adversities and held onto their farms. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

The reasons why those soldier settlers exited who did can be guessed at: • The benevolent motivation of authorities regarding returned soldiers-their eligibility was decided with less caution than in the cases of the other settlers • most of them were from the south and had never before grown sugar cane but rather had worked on dairy or sheep properties • were new to the Herbert River district so did not have family support or relatives on adjacent farms with whom they could have shared machinery, labour and expertise • they received smaller farms, in some cases less than the minimum area deemed necessary to provide an 'average living'. Of those new settlers, soldier settlers or others, who received less than 28.2 hectares (70 acres), Tanzer calculated that fewer than 50% survived • High establishment costs • Inability to access to adequate finance • Mechanization, increased costs, imperative to increase assignment • Constraint of size of initial land grant made purchasing additional assignments from those who exited prohibitive • Isolation and harsh living conditions 

For those who had to walk away from their farms on the Herbert it must have bitter sweet. They came here with so much hope. Most would be dead now, but for some their names live on not only when their families speak their names but in the collective memory of a community as residents traverse the roads named for them. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. Sydney: Angus and Robertson,1956.

Tanzer John M. AN INVESTIGATION OF NEW SETTLEMENT IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY AS A RESULT OF POST-WAR EXPANSIONS. A CASE STUDY IN THE HERBERT RIVER DISTRICT, NORTH QUEENSLAND (Bachelor of Economics, Hons, 1979.) Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. RADF Street naming project.

Ellis Rowan, flower hunter

 

Many interesting women and their stories are woven into the history of the Herbert River district. One such woman is Ellis Rowan. Her exploits and success were remarkable for the era in which she lived. This lenghty blog researched and written with thanks by Chris and Vivienne Parry is a fascinating read. 

Ellis Rowan and her son Puck

Ellis Rowan was Australia's most celebrated flower painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An emancipated woman far ahead of her time, she turned what her fellow Australian artists deemed a 'genteel' female pastime of flower painting into an adventurous and profitable career that took her all over the world. In a career spanning fifty years and ending with her death in 1922, she produced more than 3,000 paintings, many of which she succeeded in placing in public collections. She exhibited her work as far afield as London and New York and achieved acclaim at the great world expositions of her day, winning ten gold, fifteen silver and four bronze medals. Queen Victoria selected three paintings for her private chambers. She was also a writer, she recounted her travels in the popular press and in a book entitled A Flower-Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand, published in 1898.

She was born in 1848 to a wealthy pastoralist family of Victoria. Besides a position of privilege, she inherited a talent for art and natural history. Following her education in Melbourne, she visited England and probably took art lessons, though she claimed, with characteristic exaggeration, to have been entirely self-taught as an artist. She began exhibiting her paintings at about the time of her marriage in 1873 to Frederic Charles Rowan, a British army officer then serving in New Zealand and later a successful Melbourne businessman.

Ellis Rowan trekked to remote and distant places ― all over Australia, New Guinea and to the tropics of Queensland on at least six occasions. She saw herself more as an artist and public educator than a botanical illustrator. She wanted to record not the structure of flowers, but to show how they grew in their native habitats: by sea or swamp, in sparse desert, or as in north Queensland, in dense rainforest.

Though Ellis placed artistic effect over scientific record, the subjects of her paintings are accurate enough to be readily identified. Throughout her career she called on botanists to identify her subjects, sometimes sending specimens as proof.

From 1887, Ellis Rowan travelled extensively in Queensland and Western Australia in an ambitious scheme to record the Australian flora. She found the tropical flowers 'more beautiful than all' and returned again and again to Queensland during the winter months.

To explain her long absences from her husband and young son while on her travels, she invented a socially acceptable excuse: that she could not withstand the severity of Melbourne's winters. The truth is that, despite her fragile appearance, she was a woman of enormous physical stamina and determination. She returned to Melbourne only days before the untimely death of her husband, from pneumonia, in December 1892. It was found that the husband was bankrupt, so needing an income Ellis began seriously exhibiting and selling her paintings.

By then approaching her sixties, her zest for travel had not diminished and she was determined to gain recognition for her life’s work. She travelled in South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland, financing her travels with regular exhibitions. Prompted by a commission for paintings of birds of paradise for a Royal Worcester fine china tea set, she made extensive visits to Papua New Guinea in 1916 and 1917. Travelling through rugged and dangerous country to paint the endangered Birds of Paradise, she fell victim to malaria which eventually broke her health.

In Sydney in 1920, she staged what was then Australia's largest art exhibition, showing more than one thousand works. Her takings from sales of over £2,000 set a national record for a woman artist. That’s about $160,000 in today’s money. But Ellis wanted more lasting success. She was determined to place her paintings in the public domain.

Ellis wished to have her own paintings together on public display. For many years Ellis, and later a memorial committee, lobbied the Australian Government to purchase her collection, even though at that time there was no national gallery to house it. The government eventually paid £5,000 for 947 paintings, in today’s money over $460,000. They are now kept in the National Library of Australia, in Canberra.

 Her travels in Queensland

In 1887, at the age of thirty-nine, she made her first painting expedition to Queensland. After time in Brisbane, where she had introductions to the Premier and the Government Botanist, she headed to Mackay by coastal steamer where she had heard there were 'many beautiful flowers' to be found at that time of the year. Not disappointed, she stayed for almost seven weeks.

She travelled to Townsville and from there she went to the sugar plantations of the Herbert and Johnstone Rivers. In the Herbert she stayed at Macknade House, and painted flowers from the gardens and orchids collected from the surrounding rainforest. She arrived in time for the annual Ingham show and race meeting. Here she met many people and gained invitations to other plantation houses and gardens. Ellis especially liked Lucinda Point and did several paintings there.

Herbert River Cocky Apple, Lucinda

To leave the district Ellis had to be rowed out to the coastal steamer with the Herbert River in flood. She wrote that it was very dangerous and she was lucky to survive. She did a sketch of the scene which was reproduced in her book.

On a later visit to the Herbert she stayed at Farnham plantation, where her niece, Joice Nankivell, was a six-year-old. Joice Nankivell went on to become the most famous woman to be born in this district for her work with children escaping Europe in WWII and later helping Greek refugees escape from the war with Turkey. Today there is a monument to Joice in the Ingham Botanical Gardens. After Farnham Plantation went bankrupt Joice and her mother went to live with relatives in Victoria, and there she saw Ellis again and visited her at her home at Mt Macedon. Joice later wrote that it was Ellis who encouraged her to be a journalist and to travel overseas.

Herbert River Shining Starlings

She then continued north to the plantations at the Johnstone River. On this visit to Queensland, she completed at least sixty-four paintings before the heat and an attack of malaria drove her from the tropics in December.

She returned to Queensland in the winters of 1891 and 1892 for more extensive visits. On one visit Ellis made grand tours of the Torres Strait islands in the Queensland Government steamer the Albatross, as guest of John Douglas, the Government Resident at Thursday Island, who was her brother-in-law. On Thursday Island she met Sana Jardine, said to be a Samoan princess, who was the wife of Cape York pioneer Frank Jardine. She invited Ellis to stay at their home, called Somerset, on the Cape York mainland. Somerset had been the home of the Government Resident of Cape York and Ellis did many paintings there. Sana then took Ellis on a boat trip to the outer islands of the Torres Straits.

On at least one of her visits to Cairns, Ellis visited Hambledon House, built by the Swallow family, the wealthiest sugar planters in the district. The house had a huge library and a ballroom lit by crystal chandeliers. Ellis put her sketch of the house in her book.

On her visit of 1892 Ellis Rowan spent some time in Cooktown. Her object on this trip was to paint the Cooktown Orchid. From there she made an expedition to the remote Bloomfield River, and it here beside the river she found much to paint, including the Wonga Vine and the Moonflower. Ellis then made a strenuous climb of Mount Macmillan to look out over the Bloomfield valley to the coast: a scene she described as ’one of the finest in all Queensland’. From 1911 to 1913, Ellis, then in her sixties, undertook more visits to Queensland.

Herbert River Snow Wood

After 1913 she turned her attention to New Guinea, in search of Birds of Paradise. Here, in two trips at the age of 70, she painted 45 of the known species.

Ellis Rowan was possibly the most enthusiastic of all the traveller-artists to visit the Queensland tropics in her day. In 1892, looking out over the Bloomfield Valley, she wrote: ‘... if our Australian artists only knew what rich and endless subjects they would find in Northern Queensland, they would surely make up their minds to endure a little roughing and camping out ...at this time of year. It would well repay them.’

She was fortunate enough to travel when much of the countryside was botanically unexplored and its natural beauty unspoilt, when she could share the joy of finding rare or even unknown specimens. Above all, it was the botanical richness of the tropics that attracted Ellis.

Though she stressed the importance of recording her subjects in situ, working quickly, she usually completed them in a nearby plantation house or hotel. Her book recounts how she laboured into the night, painting specimens collected on excursions or presented to her by local residents. Though executed indoors, the paintings generally have the freshness of works painted in the open air, for she was a rapid and direct worker, proud that she could apply her paints without the aid of pencil under-drawing.

Ellis Rowan did not claim to be a botanical artist in scientific terms, but her evocative paintings and writings did much to raise public appreciation of the Australian flora. She left a precious record of the Queensland landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of plant species that are now disappearing.

Adapted from Judith McKay, Ellis Rowan: A Flower-Hunter in Queensland (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1990)

Other references:

National Library of Australia

Ellis Rowan. A Flower Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand. 1898

M. Hazzard. Australia’s Brilliant Daughter Ellis Rowan. 1984

P. Fullerton. The Flower Hunter Ellis Rowan. 2002 NLA

J McKay. Ellis Rowan A Flower Hunter in Queensland 1990